[VIDEO] Steal Our Winning Sales Strategies

We recently held a webinar to share some of the sales coaching strategy and tactics from top sales coaches at brands and companies that are making a name in sales today. In case you missed it or just need to live it again, here is a recap of the best practices, quick wins, and templates for you to steal and launch your own scorecards and coaching programs

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Before you can really understand scorecard strategy, let’s breakdown the concept of Activities, Objectives and results:

What is the benefit of scoring those metrics versus just logging them in a CRM? 

So often, sales goals trickle down from leadership and they are left at that. There is no plan of execution, it is more: “Here’s what we need, now go do it.”  

What if, instead of leaving goals with no play book, you could say “here is exactly what you need to do to get there and here is the evidence behind it”?

That’s what scorecards are. Instead of saying “Here’s your GOAL,” Scorecards allow you to say “Here’s the GUIDE.” Scorecards are really important for managers and their teams as they circle in on the right BLEND of activities , WEIGHTING of those activities, level of visibility, and executing tactics intentionally to achieve goals -----  you just can’t do that in a CRM. 

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How do you find the right blend of activities for your Scorecards?

The #1 most tracked selling activity is calls. But it is surprising the number of organizations that don’t track other activities or weight them by efficacy. The right blend of activities cannot be overstated — For example, Ambition’s SDRs are picking up the phone a minimum of 40 times a day. It does not make sense for someone on the team to be able to hit their daily / weekly activity goal if they send a thousand emails and don’t pick up the phone.

There is definitely some trial and error that goes into this, but measuring, testing and reacting based off of data is key to achieving the right blend. -- In a fast growth SaaS company, what worked 3 months ago probably won’t work today.  Scorecards should grow and change with the business and also with your individual contributors. One example of an SDR blend that we are using at Ambition right now is: 

• Calls (40 Calls / Day)
• Sequenced Activities (50 / Day)
• # of Contacts in Pursuit (150 Contacts @ 50 Accounts)
• List Replenishment (This is an interesting one to figure out and 1 we are still working on)

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What are some of the more commonly tracked objectives on scorecards?

The top Sales Objective KPI measured in the KPI report  was Meetings Completed. That metric was measured by 71% of our polled companies. Therefore, objectives live just a little bit further down the funnel.

When comparing activities to objectives, It isn't just about objectives though. It is also about the efficiency metrics and the relationship between the activities and objectives. 

Let’s use Scheduled Meetings as our Objective and stair-step up from Call Activity:

                            Connect to Meeting

            Connects

Calls

If a rep has made 100 calls and nobody has picked up the phone today, you don’t need to light a fire under them. You need to look at list quality and whether we are calling during golden hours.

Now, the next logical Objective layer will look something like this: 

                                  Meeting held to pipeline

Meeting scheduled to held

Similar concept here — if someone has scheduled 10 meetings that have all been conducted and none have moved to pipeline, you need to figure out if these match your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) and potentially look at AE conversion rates to see if there is an issue with the pitch, their demo presentations, etc.

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What are the other efficiency or ratio metrics to coach around or dive into when things are off track?

• Average talk time-- Shows how good a rep is doing at controlling the call and getting the audience to listen and engage

• Connects to meetings set-- Shows how good the pitch is. Again, remember that connects to meetings set is better than calls to meetings set. 

• Meetings held to opportunity-- Shows how successful the reps demo is.. That is why you want to track meetings that were actually HELD that convert… not just meetings set. Sometimes people stand you up and don’t show and don’t convert, but that doesn’t speak to the pitch. 

• Opportunity to Closed Won-- Shows how strong of a closer they are

• Average order value-- Shows upsell ability and makes sure they don’t lean on price discounting to be their main closing strategy 

• Emails Sent to emails open-- Shows how effective reps are at targeting the right person in an org and how good the subject lines are. To Emoji or not Emoji: that is the question! 

• Email reply to meetings set-- Shows ability to sell through email 

All of these are coachable metrics where you would look to see improvement through your own coaching. 

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What are examples of activity and objective scorecards for various roles?

To help you gut check and see what other sales teams are tracking and doing, we were able to get some real sales leaders to share their scorecard methodology.

Click here to see examples of real sales scorecards. 

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What are examples of coaching programs associated with efficiency metrics or aimed at different roles?

When you are launching coaching programs, it makes sense to attribute the programs to various efficiency metrics like we mentioned above. Viewing the activity hustle against the effectiveness or quality of those activities is the perfect conversation starting place. Click here to get a full page of real sales coaching templates from elite sales managers around the globe. 

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Now I know how to measure my reps with leading indicator metrics instead of simply relying on results, but how do we measure sales coaches or managers? 

Sales Managers and coaches are so often strapped for time, pulled in a million directions, and then all they have to show for their work are the results metrics that can’t really be managed. When thinking about activities and objectives to measure “good, effective sales management” there are a few metrics that sales leaders should be tracking.

1. Measure sales manager activity by number of coaching activities completed. Call reviews, 1:1s, team meetings, and action plan meetings are all examples of quantity or activity metrics you want to see from your coaches.

2. Measure their objectives by improvements in efficiency rates. Are your coaches able to increase activity output of reps through driving discretionary effort via relationships? Look at the connects to meetings set, opps to closed won ratio metrics for reps they are coaching. Can they coach specifically to those efficiency rates and document sessions held around those metrics and show the percent lift that happened there thanks to the coaching? 

3. We also think orgs should survey reps anonymously to see what they want more out of coaching and how they rate the sales coaching they are receiving. High level sales directors and leaders have to be willing to coach your coaches. Just like sales reps need to be measured on early indicator metrics and not just quotas,  your sales coaches and managers need resources and early indicator metrics of success outside of revenue attainment.

Want to go deeper into the topics covered above? Watch the full webinar recording!